Stone Cold with a heart of gold Damage' review...

Posted on October 19, 2009 - 5:55am by michael Obviously, I would be lying if I said that Stone Cold Steve Austin's second starring role was an impressive venture, but I would also be lying if I said that the thing was as devoid of merit as such direct-to-video material generally is. However, it would still be in my best interest to never meet Mr. Austin, on the off-chance that he happens across this review, because I will certainly avoid dishonesty when commenting on his acting skills, which have all the depth and range of a petrified tree stump. Because unlike the high-powered fight promoters in this movie, who refuse to even consider funding a big fight with him as an opponent, I can clearly see that the man is nothing less than a formidable land mass who would have no qualms or difficulty in casually handing the asses to anyone fool enough to get in the ring with him. Austin plays the perfectly named John Brickner, an ex-con who is granted parole because Veronica (Lynda Boyd), the wife of the man that he murdered with his bare hands wrote a letter to the parole board in favor of his release. Brickner has certainly learned his lesson and hopes to lead an honest life, but soon learns that Veronica had a hidden agenda behind her forgiveness of her husband's killer. Her daughter needs a $250,000 heart transplant, and her only hope of getting the money is encouraging the release of Brickner and demanding that he find a way to get the money in order to repent for taking away the girl's father. Well yeah, Brickner did a terrible thing (the real details of which we never learn, by the way), but Veronica's little scheme, justified or not, sounds suspiciously to me like blackmail, or at least extortion, both of which I had previously been under the impression were illegal. Maybe moral extortion is allowed. [caption id="attachment_60673" align="alignleft" width="366" caption="A fully rehabilitated John Brickner looks to a future that's brighter than his past."][/caption] Although those of us stuck within the confines of reality tend to understand that there is quite a bit more involved in a heart transplant than just coming up with the money. Unfortunately, 12-year-old human hearts aren't exactly just stitting on some warehouse shelf waiting to be purchased. At any rate, John's explanation of his repentance at his parole hearing was genuine, so he accepts what he sees as his responsibility to provide something for the daughter of the man that he killed, to give life where he had taken it before. After working first in construction and then as a mountainous bouncer at some bar, he meets a small-time fight promoter named Reno, who has an agenda of his own but who sees in Brickner's meaty frame the potential for big money on the highly illegal street-fighting circuit. But from here on out, the rest of the movie is a rather tiring slog through martial arts movie clichs, as John struggles through nameless streetfights to raise the money needed for the operation. [caption id="attachment_60674" align="alignright" width="392" caption="Brickner's first opponent, who may have his teeth filed to points, but is at least smarter than Brickner's last opponent, who doesn't know better than to get into a bare-knuckle prize fight covered with facial piercings."][/caption] For his part, Brickner is a better developed and more likable character than the ones that tend to star in the paper-thin plots of low-budget fighting movies, but he's developed through a series of cheap scenes that are specifically (and poorly) designed to show what a groovy guy he is. He saves his jerkoff boss's life just as the man was busy viciously berating and then firing him, he allows major wrongs to roll off his back, offering only avalanches of kindness in return, and generally acts like a Biblical saint when any normal man would at least have been a little on the irritated side. Indeed, it seems that he may have completely lost his temper when he strangled that unfortunate man to death, and then just never found it again. The charm of the movie tends to come from its heartwarming story which, unfortunately, is shrouded in bad writing and half-assed acting, with a particularly cardboard performance from Steve Austin, whose sheer, alpine scariness makes it impossible for us to believe that they couldn't find financial backing to get him into an outlawed fighting ring. Physically he simply plays himself, as though struggling to find his way into the very wrestling career that made him famous in the first place. [caption id="attachment_60677" align="alignleft" width="406" caption="Made you look!"][/caption] Walton Goggins, who has an impressive list of acting credits but who I'll always remember as Downtown Anderson from the highly goofy Major League 3, fits nicely into his shady character and, despite doing nothing particularly amazing, delivers the best performance in the movie, while 25-year-old teenybopper Laura Vandervoort, a ten-year acting veteran without a single impressive credit to her name, vainly tries to play the part of a former prostitute struggling to put her life back together. It's a perfect example of horrific miscasting resulting from too much reliance on aesthetic appeal. In other words, they wanted someone cute, not someone who could act or who in any way fit with the character in the script. Oops. And what's the deal with that kind of casting, by the way? I'm going to go ahead and suggest that a lot of these modern movies, particularly the sad, moronic teen horror films that have been blighting theaters since the mid-90's or so, have to thank for their total lack of distinction the fact that they are all populated with the cutest little teen actors available who, when introduced to us in such mechanical, assembly-line fashion, become so indistinguishable from each other and so instantly forgettable that they pull their movies down into obscurity with them. Hollywood is so obsessed with superficiality and so unconcerned with genuine acting prowess that the movies have become mass-produced, plasticky rip-offs of their former selves. At any rate, Damage isn't quite a big enough film the justify such an encompassing indictment of 21^st century filmmaking standards, but it typifies an easily recognizable problem at the heart of it all. There is a mildly touching story hidden somewhere in the proceedings, but it's almost impossible to see it through the thick fog of mind-numbing, clich-riddled fights punctuated with cheeseball music, bad writing and directing, and indifferent acting. The Bean Meter